Parshall – Although many misguided souls labor under the notion that fishing for northern pike in Colorado is a year-round activity, the fact remains that the season opened officially last Thursday.
That’s when the phone call arrived, toward sundown, announcing Dave Van Cleave’s annual catch of a monster pike. As with each of his previous declarations, this one came with the sort of twist that has become standard fare for a Denver resident with a knack for transforming the unthinkable into the ordinary.
“I’ve got this problem,” the voice said, somewhat breathlessly.
When Van Cleave has a problem, it usually involves something acutely life-threatening or a fish that requires industrial-strength intervention to extract from the lake.
On various outdoor excursions, he twice has been struck by lightning but, it must be noted, never in the same location. He also has been gored by a bull elk, survived a helicopter crash and walked away from multiple auto smashups.
The man is both a fish magnet and a survivor; seldom can a Van Cleave expedition be reviewed as ordinary.
Turns out that he had managed to take possession of this most recent pike without incident, but wasn’t quite clear what to do with it.
“I may have broken my record, but I’m not sure how to get it weighed,” he said from a cellphone perch atop a hill not far from the shore of Williams Fork Reservoir and the precise place he caught a 30-pound, 6-ounce pike 10 years earlier. “It’s not as long as the record fish, but you can’t believe how fat it is.”
The post office in Kremmling, about a dozen miles distant, was closed. What’s a body to do?
“There’s a new grocery store in Granby and another supermarket with an official scale in Fraser,” it was suggested.
“Yeah, but that’s a long way and I want to stay here and fish a couple more days,” came the reply.
“So is it really big enough to warrant the trip?”
“I guess I’ll have to find out,” Van Cleave said with the resignation of someone who too often has been compelled to launch these measuring missions.
The next call, more desperate, came in an hour or so. The desired official scale had been located, but the great fish’s head and tail spilled off the sides and onto the counter.
Then, minutes later, I heard the same voice, now choked with sadness.
“I messed up. While I was getting a picture taken, I dropped her and all the eggs spilled out,” Van Cleave mourned.
Minus an estimated 5 pounds of eggs, the big female subsequently weighed 22 pounds – well below the record, but big enough to send an excited outdoors writer scurrying toward the lake.
Truth is, Van Cleave was pushing the Williams Fork pike envelope on last week’s excursion. Illness had kept him from his usual April ice-out try for trout. Although the best pike action doesn’t occur until the water warms toward the second half of May, he figured on at least catching a rainbow trout or whatever else might bite.
And bite they did. Through the universal medium of a Krocodile spoon, he had caught rainbows, browns, lake trout and a kokanee salmon before the big pike appeared.
“The strike was amazing. I couldn’t believe how big she looked,” Van Cleave said, describing a tug of war that moved large lengths of 8-pound test line on and off his spinning reel.
Van Cleave caught several other pike next day, including one estimated at 18 pounds, before the weather turned and he finally headed home, vowing to return soon.
There’s reason to anticipate a good season for Colorado pike over the next month or so, even a run at the record. You never know where, or whom, lightning will strike next.
Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-820-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
Up the pike
Colorado boasts a number of reservoirs that contain healthy populations of pike, some of trophy size.
Elevenmile: Good numbers of fish, but seldom anything really large.
Harvey Gap: Small water, not-so-small pike. Best in early season.
Sanchez: Hit hard by drought, reputation has slipped of late.
Spinney Mountain: A trout-protection program has reduced both the size and numbers of pike, but many big ones remain.
Stagecoach: A front-runner to produce a record. Pike are plump and plentiful.
Williams Fork: Dave Van Cleave’s favorite lake. Enough said.
